LOL@ all the Beltre threads. At the beginning of the season, he played a few games with his head up his ass at 3rd base. I don't think anyone questioned his ability to play good defense, except maybe for Jacko who was clearly breaking balls. After last night's game, he is on pace to hit 20-25 HRs, which is about his career norm. Hitting behind a hot Ortiz all year could move that number up closer to 30.
The abuse Beltre took was nowhere near what Ortiz experienced. So, many people buried had buried Ortiz when he had far less than 100 ABs. He was about 70 ABs into the season and people wanted to release him. That ******* Rosenthal even floated the unsubstantiated and probably completely fabricated rumor that the Sox were going to cut him. The piece of s*** Rosenthal was probably trolling TalkSox for the rumor. No one was talking about DFA'ing Beltre- no one. The fact is that Beltre had. Uncharacteristically made too many errors early in the season (most of the mental variety) some of which cost games and he was justifiably criticized for it.
Now that he is performing as expected, the Sox FO is still presented with a conundrum for 2011. If he continues to perform, he probably opts out of his 2011 contract and walks. Would the consequence of that be that the Sox sign VMart to play first base while moving Youk across the diamond to third? If Beltre doesn't perform and he exercises his 2011 option to stay with the Sox, do the Sox let Vmart walk, because he is not a good full time catcher? There would only be room for him if the FO let's Ortiz walk, and I don't see that happening if he hits 30 HR s and 100+ RBI. The FO options are better and more clear cut if Beltre performs and walks IMO. What do you think?